The Fortean times and its moderation failure (alt-right, atheist, materialist)

David Bailey said:
Do you actually have a good example of what you would call Alt-Right extremism? These terms rapidly just become terms of abuse - and nearly meaningless.

Traditionally 'right wing' meant above all militaristic views. That doesn't seem to characterise the Alt-Right (I think).

David
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Good question. I should probably try to define it more or use it less. You're right to pull me up on it. I think alt-right - as far as I understand - is based less on any political spectrum but draws more from a countercultural/quasi-occult impetus. You wouldn't really classify the old school Christian Right as alt for example. You could even have the traditional targets of the right in the alt version: gays, pagans etc.
 
Tarquin Rees said:
True, politics is a false prism Imo and I am not invested in it either. But we do need to describe things when we discuss which is why I suppose the old left/right labels came into being. Some people don't want to accept the label or change it for some other reason (to win points?) though. Atheists do this a lot actually if you try to define the term atheist and what it signifies. They nearly always obfuscate and try to redefine.

Is all immaterial really as long as we know what we mean I suppose.
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No argument from me. The terms left and right have become redundant as definitions, and conservative and liberal, traditional and progressive aren't much better. It isn't the conditions from which they arose that have gone away, but they've been chewed over like bubblegum until the taste is lost. Look at a religious forum if you must, and you'll find people rendered mute without recourse to these meaningless taxonomies, and that for a subject in which politics has no place.
 
gabriel said:
No argument from me. The terms left and right have become redundant as definitions, and conservative and liberal, traditional and progressive aren't much better. It isn't the conditions from which they arose that have gone away, but they've been chewed over like bubblegum until the taste is lost. Look at a religious forum if you must, and you'll find people rendered mute without recourse to these meaningless taxonomies, and that for a subject in which politics has no place.
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Yeah, I am preferring terms like 'bastard scum' and 'decent people' these days. I think it could work but, strangely, it does still seem to roughly approximate to the Left/Right designation with the 'utter bastards' being largely from the right of the political spectrum. Is a conundrum.
 
Typoz said:
Seriously?

Use of such terms is what kills any possible discussion.
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Not from me. I can keep discussing endlessly. It's a serious point. I am arguing that Left and Right be replaced with different values that are not equivalents.

How about 'good' and 'evil' then? That works for me as I have a religious bent but I avoided the terminology as I thought it might derail. "Selfish" or "Altruistic"? "Mad" and "Sane" all these work and I think most people know what is meant regardless of their political position.
 
Typoz said:
Seriously?

Use of such terms is what kills any possible discussion.
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How about actually referring to what people actually believe:

A1 People who believe in Climate Change from industrial CO2.
A2 People who don't believe in Climate Change from industrial CO2.
A3 People who don't really care, but see backing one side or the other as being to their advantage.

B1 People who believe in a world with no borders.
B2 People who believe borders are essential.
B3 People who don't care except in as much as it gives them a soapbox.
B4 People who believe in a world with no borders, but who live in gated communities.

C1 People who believe Russia is so awful, we need to aim for war with Russia
C2 People who extract money from the military process, and want confrontation with Russia to continue, but don't want it to go all the way.
C3 People who want peace.

D1 People who believe there is an enormous amount yet to be done to free LBGT people.
D2 People who think we are in danger of antagonising the majority if we are not careful.
D3 People who would go back to the Victorian era in this regard.

E1 People who think Muslims are a highly persecuted minority and should be protected in any way possible.
E2 People who think Muslims need to be integrated into mainstream society a lot more, and backward concepts should be challenged hard, using the law if necessary.
E3 People who would expel al Muslims from the West

F1 People who think world trade is wonderful.
F2 People who think world trade needs tight control to prevent it being exploitative.
F3 People who would rather world trade was minimised, and each country made its own goods and food as far as possible.

My politics would be A2/B2/C3/D2/E2/F3

I don't see any other way to discuss these issues sensibly. There are plenty of letters of the alphabet left, if people want to expand the scheme. Decimal numbers might also be OK - e.g. A1.5 might refer to someone who thought Climate Change from CO2 might be real, but insufficiently large to matter that much.

David
 
Tarquin Rees said:
Yeah, I am preferring terms like 'bastard scum' and 'decent people' these days. I think it could work but, strangely, it does still seem to roughly approximate to the Left/Right designation with the 'utter bastards' being largely from the right of the political spectrum. Is a conundrum.
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As someone who tries to read both "liberals" and "conservatives" while not identifying with either I'd object to the last statement at least in the Western world.

Not that "liberals" are necessarily worse, but it becomes hard to keep score. Racism seems rife in corners of both "sides" (anti-PoC or anti-white, take your pick), and not even sure how one balances the rest of the scoreboard. I suspect would very much depend on how one sees fetuses (I lean toward regarding them as persons while seeing the value of bodily autonomy), obligations of charity vs personal rights, etc.

But really I think the arbitrary litmus test politics of left/right are increasingly illusory if not outright detrimental. My hope is the socialist/libertarian divide provides some more rationally identifiable differences though I consider both in their extremes to feel more fit for fantasy and sci-fi genres than real solutions.
 
Sciborg_S_Patel said:
As someone who tries to read both "liberals" and "conservatives" while not identifying with either I'd object to the last statement at least in the Western world.

Not that "liberals" are necessarily worse, but it becomes hard to keep score. Racism seems rife in corners of both "sides" (anti-PoC or anti-white, take your pick), and not even sure how one balances the rest of the scoreboard. I suspect would very much depend on how one sees fetuses (I lean toward regarding them as persons while seeing the value of bodily autonomy), obligations of charity vs personal rights, etc.

But really I think the arbitrary litmus test politics of left/right are increasingly illusory if not outright detrimental. My hope is the socialist/libertarian divide provides some more rationally identifiable differences though I consider both in their extremes to feel more fit for fantasy and sci-fi genres than real solutions.
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I think the demarcations are probably impossible to solve. Also the European/American versions of 'Liberal' are markedly different. Probably the best we can do is to put our position on record and hope people remember it in any discussion. For the record here's my position:

With things like 'Liberal', 'Left', 'Right', 'Islam' and 'Christianity' I mean the original thing, or as near as possible to get. For example, I don't accept the Church or Evangelicals are Christians in the sense I use the word and that sense is purely based on the teaching of Christ (what else could it be based on? I am not a Christian btw). Ditto with Islam - I don't accept Daesh or Wahabis as Muslims - reference Muhammad and Qur'an. Liberals and Left/Right I also intend the original meaning of those terms.

But yeah, is confusing... for sure.
 
David Bailey said:
That doesn't seem to characterise the Alt-Right (I think).
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The AltRight is defined by three core values. To be AltRight, you must be EXPLICITLY:
  • Pro-White

  • Anti-Degeneracy

  • and Counter-Semitic
That last one is what separates the AltRight from the AltLight pretenders like Ezra Levant's Rebel Media.

To maintain the rebellious, anti-system counter-culture that young people want, all three criteria must be present, or it doesn't work.
 
Charlie Primero said:
The AltRight is defined by three core values. To be AltRight, you must be EXPLICITLY:
  • Pro-White

  • Anti-Degeneracy

  • and Counter-Semitic
That last one is what separates the AltRight from the AltLight pretenders like Ezra Levant's Rebel Media.

To maintain the rebellious, anti-system counter-culture that young people want, all three criteria must be present, or it doesn't work.
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So basically the same old Nazis then. Imagine my shock.
 
Tarquin Rees said:
So basically the same old Nazis then.
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No. Most AltRight people are former Libertarians who despise Socialism.

Some AltRight people are genuine National Socialists, but they are a small minority.

A big part of the AltRight's success is this fascinating combination of dynamic tolerance for diversity of ideology combined with hard exclusion and exclusivity based upon the core principles above. It's a winning formula.
 
Let's be honest, politics is for arseholes. At best it's showbusiness for ugly people, mostly it's a career route for gobby PPE graduates. You can count the number of conviction politicians on one hand, and they cross parties. Peoples' politics, like their sexuality, is the least interesting thing about them. It requires a monumental lack of imagination to equate left and right with good or bad, and vice versa. Alt.right sounds like level 4 virtue signalling, No True Scotsman for the fallaciously challenged. Morality for the amoral.
 
Charlie Primero said:
No. Most AltRight people are former Libertarians who despise Socialism.

Some AltRight people are genuine National Socialists, but they are a small minority.

A big part of the AltRight's success is this fascinating combination of dynamic tolerance for diversity of ideology combined with hard exclusion and exclusivity based upon the core principles above. It's a winning formula.
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Ah I see, the old 'Nazis were Socialists' schtick.

You should put that in your justification of the alt-right as a fourth aspect:

4) If you don't want to own to something for be seen as it call that thing the opposite.

I see you gave a demo in the first post and snuck it in cutely with 'counter'-semitic! Smooth!
 
gabriel said:
Let's be honest, politics is for arseholes. At best it's showbusiness for ugly people, mostly it's a career route for gobby PPE graduates. You can count the number of conviction politicians on one hand, and they cross parties. Peoples' politics, like their sexuality, is the least interesting thing about them. It requires a monumental lack of imagination to equate left and right with good or bad, and vice versa. Alt.right sounds like level 4 virtue signalling, No True Scotsman for the fallaciously challenged. Morality for the amoral.
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Yeah agree.... I said above we only really need one designation "Racist Scum" - seems somehow more evocative than David's A1, A2, B! etc.
 
I don't recognise any label. FWIW I'm uncompromisingly monocultural, I want the Christian message (let's say the Sermon on the Mount) enshrined in law, and tolerance extended to those who subscribe to it or acknowledge its pre-eminence as a social model. Skin colour I couldn't care a jot about and expect that indifference to be returned unequivocally. I'm socially conservative (mutually supporting families preferably with two parents, hard graft, rights in exchange for responsibility, anti-relativism, intolerant of the intolerant) and morally deterministic (fair day's pay, support for the poorest, free health and education for all, state owned utilities). Something like the 1945 government without the communist rhetoric, or the late John Smith's Labour Party before it was purloined by free market liberals and ishoos lead tub-thumpers.

I accept no responsibility or vicarious guilt for national errors before my time and birth location, and full responsibility for decisions made as an adult.
 
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